


pretty mouth and green (my) eyes

by fatalize



Category: Banana Fish
Genre: Gen, idk how to use tags here tho so that's it I guess, it alludes a little bit to ash's history but it's nothing explicit at all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-21
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2019-06-13 17:23:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15369549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fatalize/pseuds/fatalize
Summary: Aslan Jade Callenreese.He hadn't thought about his name much until Eiji brought it up.





	pretty mouth and green (my) eyes

**Author's Note:**

> The title is, as referenced below, from J.D. Salinger’s short story “Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes,” which is only tangentially related to this (really, it’s not related at all except in name, lol). The title caught my eye and got stuck in my head and all I could think of was Ash, for some reason.
> 
> The dialogue in this is lifted directly from their conversation in volume 11 when they’re on the ferry.

_Rose my color is, and white  
Pretty mouth and green my eyes_

\- J.D. Salinger, “Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes”

Jade, huh.

Aslan Jade Callenreese.

He didn’t think of his name much, really—and what was there to think about in the first place?—what’s in a name; that which we call a rose, et cetera. His full name felt private and formal, somehow, a name reserved for some other version of himself, a name given to him by someone who had nothing to do with his current life.

He was Ash, Ash Lynx, New York City gang leader, this was the name he had carved out for himself, had clawed into the world. Wildcat, cinders, he was violence and its aftermath. At the very least it was a name that suited his life now—his full name was from a life he left behind.

But…

Jade.

Huh.

His eye color etched into his very name, a permanent part of his being, ascribing to him their importance before it ever even became an issue.

Though the first issue was his mouth. “You’ve got a pretty mouth, boy,” they’d say—though how else could lips be pretty but in their function. They were pretty to the men who came in because of their trained technique. Although that, at least, he could reclaim to a degree; in recent years pretty mouth was used more in sarcasm, a response to Ash’s point-blank tongue and the words it fired off. “You’ve got a pretty mouth, kid,” where _pretty_ meant insulting and _kid_ meant bastard.

But his eyes—and his hair, it was both working in tandem, those were the main targets, those were the things he couldn’t as easily transform into new weapons, had to rely on their old values. Halo of angel hair, silk-straw, fool’s gold. And then the pale green, equal parts cold and soft, cutting and inviting, sharp and deep.

And eyes were windows, weren’t they—forget the lips, forget the hair, the eyes were what made him look more vulnerable to them, perhaps, what fulfilled their need for violence and a power trip more than anything else.

But also.

Maybe they were just pretty was all. Maybe he was just their type and people were just fucked in the head.

_Jaded jade eyes I have._

“It’s not a common name. What does it mean?” Eiji asks.

“It’s an ancient Hebrew word that was used in prayer. It means daybreak… ’cause I was born at dawn.”

Aslan. Definitely uncommon, that was for sure. His mother must’ve had to reach for that—he could only imagine what kind of person would go to such lengths to find an obscure name just to get a special meaning she wanted, only to leave the child later.

“What about your middle initial, J?”

“Jade.”

The thought flickers briefly through his mind, _does Eiji know this word,_ since it’s such a specific word for a color, but the thought is there and gone in a second because he doesn’t really doubt that he knows, and Eiji doesn’t miss a beat as he says, “Your mother put much thought into giving you those names. She wanted your life to be beautiful and shining, like jade in morning light of dawn.”

Jade in the dawn, huh.

It was poetic, for sure. But both of his names were laced with metaphor—burning and wildness, break of dawn and gemstone green.

And Eiji said nothing about his eyes.

He said _much thought_ , he said _happy life_ , he said _carefully_ and _loved you very much, I’m sure,_ and the words fall like slow raindrops on him one by one, the innocence of their intention soaking him through.

A new perspective. Something of heart rather than something physical. It’s so like Eiji, isn’t it.

Ash doesn’t mind it that much.


End file.
